


The Presence

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Childhood Trauma, F/M, First Meetings, Holmes Brothers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kid Sherlock, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Mentioned Eurus Holmes, Met before, Mind Manipulation, Not Canon Compliant, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pre-Series, Sherlock Is Not Okay, Sherlock is Alone, Sherlock is a Mess, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Sherlock-centric, Twins, Unexplained Presence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Since Sherlock has constructed his mind palace as a young child, there has been a presence there, a female who loves him but who he swears he's never met. As he grows older, this presence comforts him, protects him and, eventually, becomes so much more.





	The Presence

**Author's Note:**

> So this is another fic I wanted to write for **come2myrescue** for just being amazing. I'm planning for it to be angsty (and a tad bit autobiographical, in regards to the hospitalization) but! I promise it will have a happy ending. This comes from the prompt " _Not just a figure in my head - Sherlock/Molly_ " that I got from...somewhere. I'll edit this if I figure out where.

Ever since he was young, ever since he had built the palace in his mind where he sorted every scrap of information that came to him, there had been a...presence...there. No person, no shape to it, but it was distinctly feminine. Young, maybe his own age. The presence seemed intimately familiar but he had no recollection of meeting anyone who would fit it.

There were times if he wondered if his memory was faulty. There were things that his family seemed to remember differently, and he had a feeling there was someone or something who should have been there but wasn’t. That was what the mind palace had come from, this feeling that things were missing, not in the right place.

But the presence...he couldn’t pinpoint it.

One time he tried to talk to Mycroft about it. Tried to say there was something in his mind that was there and comforting and familiar but he couldn’t place where it came from. Mycroft’s eyes went wide and he asked a series of probing questions that edged around something, but certainly not the presence in his mind. It left him more confused, more curious but also knowing for a fact he couldn’t trust Mycroft with the details of what went on in his mind. His brother thought he was crazy, Sherlock bet.

Maybe he was.

Oh, the endless tests from his parents, the questions from Mycroft and Uncle Rudy... _something_ was wrong, and maybe that something was him. Maybe the presence in his head was a bad thing. But how could something so warm and loving and comforting be _bad_?

So he spent his childhood thinking he was broken, being written off as a functional sociopath, staying away from the children nearby and getting teased for his self-imposed isolation. But the presence was there, the warmth in this cold palace of his, and he knew there was more to it. Once, somehow, he had known niceness from someone not in his family.

Who it was, though, he didn’t know.

But he would find out.


End file.
